IN front of the largest league crowd of the season, 85 of them from Guildford, Jersey played their most attractive rugby of the past two years and in so doing beat league leaders Guildford 31-12 at St Peter on Saturday.
Nothing will stop Guildford heading the division, to go up to London South-West Division II.
After all, this was the first time they have lost this season.However, the reactions of the two coaches afterwards said it all.
David Dick, for Guildford, was tongue-tied.
‘Just not our day,’ he said, before turning and walking dejectedly away.’Why is it we only ever beat the good sides?’ was Jersey’s coach, Dai Burton’s reaction, with a smile on his face.He knew, as the 650-strong crowd knew, that this was a rare treat at this level; two teams wanting to play 15-a-side rugby so badly that the referee, Richard Underwood, had to be one of the fittest players on the pitch to keep up with them.Yet it had begun badly for Jersey.
For the first 15 minutes their scrum was disrupted; Guildford had all of the possession; and on one of the rare occasions Jersey did win the ball and fed it to the threes, in the 13th minute a poor pass was intercepted by their most dangerous three-quarter, Simon Wolfenden, who had an easy run in to the posts.
Peter Brown converted.When a Mark White penalty was pulled wide of the posts six minutes later, Jersey’s chances of turning the game around seemed slim - before they then scored two outstanding tries of their own.Twenty-four minutes into the game a line-out was won on the right hand side of the pitch, with Jersey playing up the slope.
Scrum-half Dave Miles’ quick pass was fed out along the threes to Gareth Jeffreys who accelerated, passed out to centre Dave Carswell, who darted over wide on the left.The next try, eight minutes later, was just as well crafted.
Miles took a quick penalty tap to himself, gained 15 yards and then watched as the ball went along the line to Jeffreys, out again to Justin Thomas and finally to Mark White who scored, unopposed, before converting.The Guildford supporters, so loud at the start, were now, noticeably, a lot more subdued.Despite repeated Guildford attacks, Jersey survived to half-time, and were transformed in the second.
In defence they were superb, with Carswell shadowing his opposite number as if he was living in his pocket.Ross Allan, at stand-off, shepherded their No 10 sideways across the pitch and in the scrum everyone played well, although Paul Woodcock’s contribution at second row made him a clear favourite for man of the match.And the tries kept coming.After Steve O’Brien’s storming run in the 65th minute was stopped only because he pulled up suddenly, with a calf injury, Jersey’s Ian Henderson won the ball in his own 22, passed it out to the teenaged Matt Banahan who galloped 30 yards before passing back infield.
Virtually all of the threes then touched it, some of them more than once, before a kick and two dropped passes (backwards) saw Miles feed on these scraps to dart over.
White again converted.Both sides continued to run the ball, and after Jersey turned the screw, Guildford conceded a penalty close to the line that ended in a line-out, a short, sharp drive and a try for Woodcock, on the right, to make it 24-7.Guildford’s coach looked shell-shocked.
Even after careless Jersey defence allowed winger Chris Alder a clear run, before being dragged to the floor by Jeffreys, a fraction of a second after the Guildford player had passed to No 8 John Moore to score, Jersey were clearly in the ascendancy.And within two minutes they then stretched their lead still further.A thundering run on the left by young hooker Josh Chamier was followed by a quick tap penalty out to Richie Griffiths who took two frantic defenders with him as he crashed over to make it 29-12.Again, Mark White converted, and the game was done and dusted.’Our defence was the key,’ said Burton afterwards.
‘We played an England style of defence.
We put them under pressure - from the start we were in their faces and stopped their play-makers, No 10 and No 12 in their tracks.
In the line-out we started to win their ball as well as ours, and once we’d balanced the scrum we played good rugby.’It wasn’t just good, it was 65 minutes of sporting theatre.
No wonder that David Dick was speechless.
He well knew that his promotion winning side were second best against a Jersey XV who’ve had a Jekyll and Hyde kind of season this year.When they are poor, they are awful.
But when they play rugby like this, they are sublime.
This was a good win against a good team - a team who’ll rue the only game they’ll lose this season at this level; and that team is Jersey.Jersey: M Nobes, J Chamier, J Brennan, P Woodcock, D McAlister, M Banahan, S O’Brien (R Griffiths), I Henderson, D Miles, R Allan, G Jeffreys, A Whelan, D Carswell, J Thomas (P Walker), M White.Guildford: M Job, D Spokes (D Bartholomew), N Rademan, P Brown, T Hughes, S Worner, J Moore, P Smith, J Hibbert, S Wolfenden, R Gilbert, J Wolfenden, C Alder, C Scott.
Article posted on 15th March, 2004 - 12.00am
Most Commented: